Diet Analysis Lab
Prelab (Part I)
- Complete Nutritional information Analysis handout to make sure you know how to interpret a nutritional
label.
-
Pick a 24 hour period of time (preferably a school day) to record the following
o EVERYTHING you eat – what it is as well as how much
o EVERYTHING you drink – what it is as well as how much
o Any supplements/vitamins/etc – what it is as well as how much
o How much sleep you got
o ALL activities for the day – what it is and how long (distance or time) don’t overlook anything!
Tips to help you out:
o This will require you to pay attention to nutrition labels and serving sizes
o You should use My Fitness Pal to help you keep track. It is available online
(www.myfitnesspal.com) or as a handy-dandy free app available for download to your phone or
tablet
o Most restaurant chains/fast food establishments have their menu’s with nutritional information
available online to help you
o Be as accurate as possible. Remember serving sizes are actual measurements. Not just how much
you ate in one sitting. (in other words, just because you ate a whole box of cookies in one sitting
doesn’t mean that it was one serving!!!)
You MUST bring this information to class on the day we are doing the analysis so you have something to
work with!!! If you are using the app or the website, we will have laptops available for you to access your
information. (even if you use the app, it will sync with the website)
Diet Analysis Lab
In this lab we will be analyzing our diet, comparing our diet to what we should be eating and then designing
a meal plan containing foods that we both eat AND that meet the recommended nutritional criteria.
Part II: What are our goals?
- To determine whether our diet is meeting our dietary needs, we must first know what our dietary needs are!
There are numerous ways to determine what our nutritional requirements are and all vary a bit based on the
criteria they take into account. We will be using the guidelines suggested by My Fitness Pal.
-
Think about the nutritional label that you analyzed for homework. How would you calculate calories from
grams of carbohydrate, fats, and protein. Would you include fiber in your calorie count? What about
starch?
Nutritional Goals based on My Fitness Goals vs. What I ate
My Fitness Pal
How is this calculated
based on calories?
Total calories
Total carbs (g)
-
sugar (g)
-
fiber (g)
Total Fat (g)
- Saturated fats (g)
Protein (g)
Cholesterol (mg)
Sodium (mg)
Iron (mg)
(100% of RDA is
how many mg???)
1. What is the difference between Total Carbohydrates, Fiber, and Sugar? What types of carbohydrates are
included in each of these categories (please answer the question completely!)
Part III: How does your one day diet compare to the recommended values?
- Now complete the table below with your ACTUAL data from your 24 hour diet. Fill the numbers in
EXACTLY as they are! No cheating! Once you are finished compare your numbers to the recommended
values (what you recorded in the previous table. Indicate whether you were on target, over or under your
goals by starring those that were “under” and neatly circling those for which you exceeded
recommendations.
My Fitness Pal (What I
ate)
Recommended by My
Fitness Pal.
How do I compare
(Real – Recommended)
Total calories
Total carbs (g)
-
sugar (g)
-
fiber (g)
Total Fat (g)
- Saturated fats (g)
Protein (g)
Cholesterol (mg)
Sodium (mg)
Iron (mg)
1. Consider the nutrients that you were either exceeded recommended values or were under the
recommended values. Pick the THREE (use the next page too) that are the furthest from your goal and
discuss the consequences of a prolonged diet of too much/too little of these nutrients.
For example, if you didn’t eat enough iron, what are the potential consequence of a prolonged diet
containing too little iron? Yes, this will require a little research.
Nutrient 1:
High or low
o Potential consequences:
Nutrient 2:
o Potential consequences:
High or low
Nutrient 3:
High or low
o Potential consequences:
Part 3: Fixing our diet
My Fitness Pal - calculator and caloric content for food
The USDA (US Dept. of Agriculture provides dietary guidelines (and suggested amounts of food) for different
caloric diets. My Fitness Pal will show you the recommended amounts for each nutrient at the bottom of your
summary page. To see all nutrients you can go to Settings, and choose the settings. (you will need to copy
down the information from your first settings, then change those settings to see the remaining information that
you need. Simply copy it into your lab handout. When you create a new diet, you can use Appendix 7. USDA
Food Patterns as a guideline for choosing types and amounts of food. Remember that many of these measures
are for a WEEK…so you will need to pick and choose accordingly. These are SUGGESTIONS. SoFAS
indicates calories from Solid Fats (saturated or hydrogenated) and added sugars (difficult to tell until the 2015
nutritional labels)
-
For this part we are going to use our goals to set up a model meal plan for one day. The requirements are:
o
o
o
o
o
It must meet your caloric intake
It must meet all macronutrient percentages (without going too far over)
It must be under the limits for saturated fats, sodium and cholesterol.
It must include food that you would actually eat!!!
You may not just find a meal plan and print it nor can your meal plan be the same as anyone else’s.
You can complete this on the Meal Plan spreadsheets. Once you get a good idea of what you want, put
it into My Fitness Pal. Be sure to tally the totals after each meal to determine how much of each goal
you have left! Enter this into My Fitness Pal and print out your ideal diet (being sure that you print two
versions, one with macro molecules as well as a version with the remaining nutrients).
Part 4: The ideal Nutrition label
-
Finally you’ll create a nutrition label for your 24 hour meal plan. Use the nutrition label generator link on
our website and plug in all your “ideal” numbers. Print your label or copy and paste it into your worksheet
(if completing an electronic version). Do this by going to “Create a Nutrition Label of your ideal day” on
the Resources page.